Mother Dearest

I toyed with the idea of killing myself. It seemed so easy, just a few pills, some slits in my wrist, and it would be all over. No more pain, no more psychiatrists, no more you.

“Any family would sell me for a dollar?” I screamed, holding the knife to my neck. You looked stunned, and told me to put the knife down.

“Why?” I asked, “It’s not like I’m worth anything anyways!” you fainted that day, and lay down on the floor, crying uncontrollably. I sat over your body, the knife out of my hand, the seven years of my life running past me like a movie. I cried, wondering how my life had gotten this out of control.

“Are you happy?” the doctor asked me, as I sat in his office.

“I guess,” I replied sullenly, not meeting his gaze.

After our meeting, the psychiatrist told you that I was depressed, that I needed medication, that I was sick.

I was assigned riddlin, the drug we all now know and love to hate. Half a pill- twice a day. Before riddlin came a different drug, one that sent me into uncontrollable spasms.

I was the crazy girl, the sister my brother didn’t like to have. He spoke about me, about the little sister of his who had to be medicated. The one who couldn’t come out to play because, yet again, she had gotten into trouble.

At nine, I went on a vacation with my dad. You told me that when I came home, I could be ungrounded. After three years, I could finally, finally, have the freedom I so desperately craved.

I never came home. You called me, and spoke of your day in San Francisco. No fighting, no yelling, just pure, plain, fun. Then you said it. That which crossed all barriers and tore me down to my lowest level.

“I want more days like today, so, you are going to be moving in with your dad.”

I sat on the bathroom floor of a hotel in Colorado, crying for hours. There was no consolation. I wondered if I was that bad, bad enough to be thrown out. I was no longer worth the dirt on your shoes. I was but the daughter you once had, who no longer existed.

At the end of the summer, I went home with my dad. I moved into his house, a mere 20min from the place I had called home.

I started at a new school, as the fat girl. Friends were a thing of the past, and I no longer had the confidence I once possessed. I was broken.

I went to your house on the weekends, to sleep on the couch, for I no longer had a room. I was forced to go, a measure my father insisted was necessary.

And for a while, I was happy. We fought, but our relationship as mother-daughter grew with our separation.

In the summer of seventh grade, I moved to Southern California. You were now eight hours away, and I no longer saw you every weekend.

The summer after I moved down, I went to visit you.

“You are not welcome here. You are never coming back.” you said this as you slammed the door in my face. I cried, burying my face in my brother’s pillow. He was down south, visiting my dad. I wanted to go home desperately, to forget you and your existence, to drown my troubles in false cheeriness.

“Why don’t you want to go back?” my dad asked me as we lounged in the hot tub. I shrugged nonchalantly, struggling to keep the tears at bay. I had successfully drowned the memory of you away. My dad didn’t know what you had said. He asked me again.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you what she said?” I asked with forced casualty. He was confused. I told him of her words. I gave him the poem I wrote.

All joys what were

Are now far gone

Because the loss

Of my mom

She has not died

Or been injured at all

But she is gone

Thus the start of my downfall

Happiness gone

Memories diminished

She pushed me away

We are finished

She wants me no more

Begs me to leave

No one knows

But the tales she weaves

I want to hurt her

I want her to die

This is what she tells them

All just a lie

But now I am free!

Held down no longer

I’m not going back

Her words have made me stronger

I will live on

Get older each day

Live out my life

Now here is what I say

I forgive you Mom

For what you have done

You were my life

My rising sun

Now you have heard me

Remember my words

Because I will fly

Free as the birds

I had changed the ending, ashamed of what it before said. The original concluded

Darkness has fallen

Where is the light?

Until I have you back, Mom

It will be endless night

I didn’t want him to know how depressed I was. He suggested I show you my poem. I refused; you would no longer speak to me if I did such a thing. Though you hated me, you were still my mom, and I loved you with all my heart.

I spoke to you again, and you told me that what you had said was a matter of semantics. You told me that you had meant “no longer welcome at this house,” meaning your old house, because you had moved. I knew this was a lie, but I desperately wanted you back.

You shoved me, screaming into my face.

“Go to hell! You can have your fucking precious Joni! Good riddance!” I was backing away, terrified, by your onslaught. I grabbed your arms, trying to keep them away from my face.

It was mother’s day. The one day of the year that honored you. I fled that day with my step-dad, to escape you. That night I stayed at my grandmas, your mom’s, house, unable to face you.

I was determined to stay away from you, you who had first broken me when I was nine, and continued to do so almost every time I saw you.

The next time I was forced into your presence, you laughed it off. I did not want to touch you, to be infected with you. You put your arm around me and I stood stiffly, unable to believe that this was the same woman who six months before had renounced me completely.

And yet, I forgave you again. I had the perfect life, one that flourished with each coming year. Yet there was one flaw. You. You were the one thing that brought me down to a level no one should see.

I still would not touch you. I still would not stay at your house. If I saw you, it was because you were the chauffeur for my grandmother and me.

Eventually, I risked sleeping in your hellhole again. It was fine, no big arguments erupted.

And then, there is now. You will not speak to me. You will not see me. You no longer have a daughter, and I no longer have a mother. I hear about you, about your follies. You are pregnant, and I am never to know my brother.

Sometimes I sit, and I wish I could turn back time. I would erase these years, and tell you that which perhaps I have not said enough. I love you.